PENSIVE: Raenette Taljaard as a new DP MP with Tony Leon.
Ex-QDMS



PENSIVE: Raenette Taljaard



AT THE start of 2001 a concerted assault by the executive on the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) and the auditor-general was about to commence with battle-like precision. I would look on with fascination, without realising that my party leader was about to hurl me right into the middle of the gladiatorial arena.

On January 13, ministers Alec Erwin, Mosiuoa Lekota and Trevor Manuel opened with a salvo attacking Scopa’s “incompetence” and strongly defending the integrity of the arms acquisition process. Each minister defended his corner: Lekota, the procurement process itself; Manuel, the cost of the deal and its financing; and Erwin, the benefits of the offset or countertrade obligations for job creation.

Despite this aggressive attack the ministers did commit themselves to full co-operation with the investigations, even though they complained bitterly that Scopa had not given them the opportunity to explain themselves before calling for a full probe – echoing the words of a cabinet statement the year before.

The ministerial attack was followed by the release of the letter that Minister of Justice Penuell Maduna had sent to President Thabo Mbeki, recommending the exclusion of the Heath Special Investigating Unit (SIU) from the probe. Its publication brought weeks of speculation to an end. The letter pointed out that the public protector, Selby Baqwa, had written to the minister of justice in November 2000, expressing his belief that a proclamation regarding the Heath SIU was not necessary as there was “no evidence of any unlawful appropriation or expenditure of public money and accordingly no need for the SIU to recover assets or public money”.

As Professor Tom Lodge wryly commented at the time of the Heath unit’s exclusion: “The arms inquiry could have been a blip on the ANC’s radar screen. It was a great opportunity to show it really is serious about fighting corruption. But now the issue has been elevated to the same status as the controversies over Aids and Zimbabwe. This raises serious questions about Mr Mbeki’s political judgment.”

In response to these developments, Tony Leon issued a press statement, entitled “DA strengthens Scopa team for arms deal probe”, indicating that the party was increasing its firepower in the committee to deal with the arms procurement investigation.

Comrades in arms: Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki share a joke.
Ex-QDMS

Unfortunately the tone of the statement threatened the established non-partisan approach in the committee. Tony also announced that I would be the new party spokeswoman on public accounts.

I had just become the youngest member of what the Mbeki executive called an “incompetent” committee. I was joined by various Democratic Party, New National Party and Federal Alliance MPs – now all part of the DA.

The very next day after my appointment, the president and deputy president came out with guns blazing. I felt my party had pushed my head into a hornet’s nest. Over time my term of service in Scopa would come to seem tantamount to a life sentence, if not of hard labour, then of deep cynicism. It would certainly impact on my life and cause me to question my political involvement, leading to a growing unease about what it meant to take part in public life in SA.

These were undeniably dramatic events and they would mark a turning point in my life. The idealism of the Mandela years, which had left their embers glowing in my heart, was finally extinguished.

The executive unleashed its strategy on Friday, January 19. This would bring half the cabinet, including the president, deputy president, minister of finance, minister of trade and industry, minister of public enterprises, minister of defence and minister of justice, into the fight between Parliament and the executive. But it was the president’s turn to launch a broadside on the institution in the form of a public televised address.

We knew that Mbeki was going to speak on the SABC on that day about the arms deal probe, and eagerly awaited his address.


NATIONAL SYMBOL: The SAS Spioenkop, the third frigate of the four commissioned by the SA Navy in the controversial arms deal, is put through its paces in sea trials off Skagen, Denmark.
Ex-QDMS


On the same day as Mbeki’s address, the cabinet secretary released Mbeki’s correspondence with Judge Willem Heath. In his letter Mbeki was scathing about Heath’s “touting” for work in defiance of the Constitutional Court ruling that the appointment of a judge to head the SIU was problematic. Mbeki’s anger towards the judge was palpable.

“Let me, at the outset, state that the Special Investigating Unit that you head is an instrument of this government. You, as head of the SIU, are therefore accountable to this government… You have an obligation to provide this government with whatever information you have relevant to a consideration of whether to issue a proclamation or not.

“Neither the minister nor I have the responsibility to seek information from you, the nature of which we would necessarily not even know, seeing that it is in your custody.

“I do not understand on what basis you would reach the conclusion that information about this country is more protected in your hands than in the hands of the president of this country… Worse than this, you charge that once the information you have was given to the government, in this case the president, the ‘lives of the informants’ might be jeopardised! These are very serious charges, which you will have to substantiate.

“Finally, and most important, Judge Heath, I am led to believe that you know that you do not have even prima facie evidence that, in law, any person or persons committed a criminal offence in connection with the matter under discussion. Indeed, members of your unit have been operating under the misapprehension that you, in person, when last we met, informed me that there was no basis for the issuance of a proclamation authorising you to investigate any recovery of state assets in connection with the defence acquisition.

“This would have been the correct thing for you to do, which you did not do. Instead you embarked on an unseemly campaign to ‘tout’ for work, with a level of desperation I am still trying to understand.

“Given all the circumstances detailed above, as recommended to me by the minister of justice, I have decided not to issue a proclamation for the Special Investigating Unit to investigate the strategic arms acquisition programme.”

In the light of this scathing correspondence, the omens for Mbeki’s address on Friday, January 19 did not seem favourable.

As we awaited his public broadcast, I was sitting in my office in the Marks Building when a fax came through from the office of Deputy President Jacob Zuma – in his capacity as leader of government business. It contained an explosive letter, attacking the integrity of Scopa and its chairman and calling into question its intentions in drafting the 14th report and in seeking a full-scale forensic probe of the arms deal (which the letter referred to as a “fishing expedition”).

I had never read such intemperate language – certainly not from a senior figure – and was amazed by the deputy president’s opinions about the committee in view of his own attempts to enhance Parliament’s oversight role in his capacity as leader of government business.

This was bad enough, but more was in store. As President Thabo Mbeki began his address on television I had the uncomfortable sensation of watching a concerted effort to frighten Scopa and the auditor-general by a sheer show of executive force. In his address Mbeki emphasised the government’s efforts to fight corruption and its support for any probe, committed the government to upholding the rule of law, and emphasised that it would not break any contracts it had legally entered into.

He complained bitterly about the fact that Scopa and the auditor-general had not communicated with the cabinet and cabinet subcommittees before coming to its conclusions about their decisions. This would be a recurring theme in the government’s defence.

Mbeki also revealed the sheer depth of his anger at Judge Heath in bizarre fashion. He wildly waved about two organograms *2 the judge was purported to have shown him in which Mbeki was revealed as a beneficiary of the arms deal. It seemed to me that the judge’s personality had become a key issue and not the Heath unit itself. This was an emotional and angry display of executive power by a president who detected conspiracy and a co-ordinated campaign of subversion where I and many others saw honest efforts to uncover the truth about an incredibly loose and a poor decision-making process.

Apart from his irritation at being cited as a beneficiary of the deal, what seemed to be at stake for Mbeki was not so much the allegations of corruption, but the credibility of the cabinet decision-making process he had chaired, during Mandela’s presidency and his own, before the signature of the contracts for the arms deal in December 1999. When Mbeki assured the public on television the “campaign” against the government would not succeed, I knew a whitewash was under way.

Though it might observe the procedural niceties, it would push through the executive’s will with a vengeance. After Mbeki’s public storm of fury had subsided, I sat in my office dazed and wondering what would follow.

Knowing the sensitivity of cabinet decisions on matters of defence in all countries, I realised that we faced a very difficult period ahead. I also had the premonition that while our privileges as parliamentarians would be respected, the pressures we would be placed under in Scopa would be enormous. What kind of support, I wondered, would I be able to count on from my own party? After all, these were unprecedented events – the real first test of relations between the executive and legislature in our new democracy.

Despite the dogs of war having been unleashed, there was minimal support from my party leaders at this stage. All they were interested in was the kind of publicity the investigation could generate for the opposition cause *3.

With acknowledgements to Raenette Taljaard and The Star.